ASSET MANAGEMENT A JOURNEY FOR LIFE

TWPL’s John Woodhouse explains why asset management is a journey for life.

Asset Management or merely ‘managing’ assets?

“Asset Management” is boring for most people – it sounds like house-keeping or ‘looking after stuff’. Some folks take great pride in doing it well, others treat it as a chore; necessary but tedious. Yet there is much more to the subject than the title suggests. “Asset” provides a positive angle, denoting something of value. And “Management” is not really just ‘looking after’ – it also includes a wide range of other activities, such as acquiring, exploiting, improving and protecting. Two domains have realised this and have been upgrading the subject into a professional discipline:

organisations heavily dependent upon physical infrastructure, systems, networks and equipment in delivery of their purpose, who are realising that taking a life cycle view and breaking down traditional departmental behaviours can yield much greater.

Others are following (for example, the management of data and information assets, or brand and reputational assets) and a common pattern is emerging. And this is because the time is right.